


Smile Catching

by sparxwrites



Series: Lifelines [8]
Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Alien Biology, Body Horror, Cannibalism, Human Sacrifice, Loss of Control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-05
Updated: 2014-11-05
Packaged: 2018-02-24 05:55:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2570591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparxwrites/pseuds/sparxwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Oh dear,” says Ridge, all aloof amusement and smug confidence as he hovers several inches off the ground in the doorway to Strife’s tower. His coat whips around his ankles, blown by some unseen breeze, and his left hand crackles with precautionary magic that dies as soon as he takes in the scene in front of him. “Someone’s made a bit of a mess.”</p>
<p>(In which Kirin has a regrettable <i>lapse of judgement</i>, and Will gets in the way.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smile Catching

**Author's Note:**

> this is something i've been planning for a while, and writing it was wonderful stress relief. it's gross, and i'm gross, and i apologise. written to "i never told you what i do for a living" by mcr, and "little games" by benny, if anyone's curious. as usual, title's taken from "lifelines" by imogen heap.

“Oh _dear_ ,” says Ridge, all aloof amusement and smug confidence as he hovers several inches off the ground in the doorway to Strife’s tower. His coat whips around his ankles, blown by some unseen breeze, and his left hand crackles with precautionary magic that dies as soon as he takes in the scene in front of him. “Someone’s made a bit of a mess.”

Kirin outright _snarls_ at the words, turns from where he’s pinning Will against the wall by the throat with one hand to bare teeth at Ridge. There are more serrated incisors than normal teeth, by now, too big for his still-human jaw and stained greenish with blood. Their jagged edges have _something_ snagged on them, sinew or perhaps muscle, chunks of flesh caught in the gaps between them.

It’s not hard to pinpoint the source of the gore, the blood staining the walls and pooling at his feet.

Large bites have been taken out of Will’s shoulder, stripping through fat and muscle down to the white bone of it. The carnage extends up the side of his neck, a cascade of arterial blood from mangled blood vessels soaking into what’s left of his shirt, and along the line of his jaw.

It stops just short of intruding properly onto his face, the marks thinning out towards his hair – although as far as Ridge can tell, he’s missing an ear. There’s only empty space and tacky blood where it should be on the side of his head.

Quietly, very quietly, Will whimpers.

Honestly surprised that he’s still alive, given the ruin that is his throat, Ridge blinks, and then tuts in faint reprimand. “Really,” he says, disapproval laced in every syllable. “If you’re going to sacrifice him, then get it over with. I’ve said it before, Kirin – _don’t_ play with your food.”

“He won’t say yes,” growls Kirin, still looking at Ridge. He tightens his hand around Will’s throat and presses a thumb against the soft, vulnerable underside of his jaw until his claw punctures the skin, shakes him ever so slightly. “Will you? Stubborn thing.”

The only response he gets is a thin noise of pain, Will’s eyes dim and pupils blow wide like a rabbit in the headlights. He’s shaking, fine tremors from his shoulders and fingers all the way down to where his feet are a handful of inches off the ground, his freckles flickering erratically with every stuttering heartbeat like there’s not enough blood left in his body to light them all.

Kirin makes a noise of frustration in the back of his throat, impatient, and turns back to Will to shove his face at the juncture where shoulder meets neck. He tears off another strip of flesh from Will’s collarbone with his teeth, hisses at the wet noise it makes, and swallows it along with his apologies.

He doesn’t _want_ to do this – really doesn’t want to do this, he tells himself, over and over, as if that will make it true – but can’t seem to stop himself. The hunger is all-consuming, an empty pit at the bottom of his stomach, a raw black hole of power demanding to be fed.

Its demands are incredibly persuasive.

 “I’m sorry, I’m _sorry_ ,” he mutters, exhales shakily against the mess of Will’s shoulder and bites down again, rips another chunk of flesh free. “I’m just so _hungry._ ” He bares his teeth against Will’s ragged scream, resists the urge to just keep biting and biting and _biting_ until there’s nothing left.

Sighing, Ridge strolls casually through the air towards the pair of them. “I don’t think he’s _capable_ of saying yes, right now,” he says, eyeing the way the blood around Will’s throat bubbles with every breath. He suspects the only think keeping the alien alive right now is the electric overspill of Kirin’s power that permeates the air.

“Can you speak?” he asks Will, almost kindly, a detached sort of curiosity to the question. He’s imposingly tall compared to Will, close to a foot taller even when they’re both stood on the ground. Height augmented by flight, with several inches of space between his feet and the floor, he practically towers over the alien.

Will’s lips twitch, fight to form words against the pain and lack of oxygen, and fail. The sound that comes out instead is broken enough that Kirin takes a little pity on him, numbs his injuries with a small pulse of magic from the palm still pressed against Will’s neck.

“William,” he says, evenly – as if he isn’t twitching slightly, isn’t stained with Strife’s blood from the mouth down – for the second time this evening. “I need something. I’m going to strongly suggest you give it to me.”

At the look he gets from Ridge, Kirin sighs, corrects himself. “ _Will_ you give it to me?”

Sucking in a terrified, hitching breath, and another, the air wheezes in Will’s half-ruined throat as he struggles to remember how to speak. “Y-yes,” he manages, the word little more than a damp sob, barely able to see the two monsters in front of him around the blurry tears filling his vision. “Y-yes, yes, t-take it, what- whatever-”

He doesn’t get to finish the sentence. Kirin breaks his neck with a clean snap, and lets the body fall limp and heavy to the floor.

“There,” says Ridge. “It’s so… unnecessarily _cruel_ to leave them suffering.” He raises an eyebrow at the way Kirin’s simply standing there, though, staring down at the strange angle of Will’s head and his glassy, lifeless eyes. “Go on, then. Eat up. They’re really rather disgusting when they get cold. You might even get enough from it to begin repairing your awful excuse for a human shell.”

Humming agreement, Kirin crouches down next to Strife’s corpse. The motion makes his legs twist into unnatural shapes, the inhumanness of them far more visible than when they’re mostly concealed by the straight lines of his robes. Ridge catches a glimpse of hooves against the floor, and rolls his eyes at the poor care Kirin’s been taking of his shell.

Quietly, he’s rather impressed Kirin manages to still walk normally, with all the mangled alterations his body’s been forced through.

The claws on the tips of half of Kirin’s fingers make digging his way through Strife’s chest to the ribcage an easy enough task. Brute force is more than enough to shatter bone beneath his touch, tearing through fat and muscle and splintered shards until he can close his hand around the still, steadily-cooling heart nestled in the chest cavity.

Standing up, heart clutched in one fist and dripping yet more emerald onto the floor, Kirin smiles. Unhinging his jaw with a series of clicks, he rotates it until his mouth is stretched unnaturally wide, and then forces the heart inside.

He doesn’t chew, just swallows it whole, and somehow manages not to choke against the solid weight of it distending his throat.

“That’s one way of doing it, I suppose,” says Ridge, looking mildly disgusted as Kirin rehinges his jaw by biting down viciously until it snaps back into place with the grind of bone against bone at the joints. “If you want to show off.”

Ignoring him, Kirin raises a hand to press careful fingers against the line of his jaw, checking everything is in place. One of the claws that tip just over half of his fingers catches on his skin, nicks it, and he hisses as blood that crackles like liquid lightning drips out.

The expression on Ridge’s face flickers from disgusted to alarmed for a half-heartbeat, before smoothing out into something carefully-crafted and neutral.

“Well,” says Kirin, disturbingly calmly for someone whose lower face and beard are still soaked in Will’s blood. He licks at his teeth, coaxes the meat still stuck there free so he can swallow it, cleans the greenish blood from his incisors. “That was a… regrettable lapse of judgement.”

Ridge can’t resist laughing at that. There’s a corpse on the floor, Kirin’s hands dripping with gore and his robes stained with it, the room practically swimming in blood _._ “Oh, really?” he asks, full of mirth, smirk only widening at the way Kirin scowls. “A _lapse of judgement_ , is that what they’re calling cannibalism and murder nowadays?”

Running hands down the front of his robes and banishing the blood staining it and his skin with a muttered spell, Kirin shakes his head. “It’s _sacrifice_ , not murder,” he says absently. “We bring them back. Besides, you indulge in it just the same as I do – rather more often, in fact. You have no moral high ground here.”

“Yes, but at least I make it quick and clean,” argues Ridge, shoving hands deep into his pockets, a little offended. For all the games he plays, he likes to think he’s at least neat and somewhat merciful with his sacrifices. “Rather than waiting so long that I lose control _entirely_. I mean, look at you. You’re falling apart! You’d have taken chunks out of the poor thing until there was nothing left, _yes_ be damned, if I hadn’t turned up.”

“Lying says it’s fine,” says Kirin, rubbing a self-conscious thumb over one claw – but there’s a note of hesitance to his voice, something not-quite-right. His five eyes blink, a faint tell of nerves, and he runs a thoughtful tongue over the points of his teeth despite the last of the green having been cleaned from them completely.

Ridge raises an eyebrow. “And you’re _really_ trusting the word of someone called Lying?” he asks, disbelievingly. “Honestly, Kirin. I really thought you were more intelligent than that.” He may not have met Lying personally – yet – but he knows things. Hears things.

They’re not good things.

“It’s _fine_ ,” insists Kirin, sharply. His tone leaves no room for discussion. “Su will be back soon, she’ll help me then. I’ll be fine.” He rubs at the curve of one horn, drags claws against the ribbed curve of it with a faint screech.

Looking away from the condescending pity in Ridge’s eyes, he stares down at Strife’s corpse again. It’s a limp mess of flesh and bone, broken and half-devoured at his feet, and he feels the stolen heart settle heavy in his stomach.

Scrubbing the back of one hand to across his mouth to try and remove the lingering sensation of cold, sticky blood, he manages a smile, all sharks teeth and uncertainty. “It’ll be _fine_.”


End file.
